Switch to Panasonic good idea or not worth it?

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David
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At the moment I use Canon 60mm and 65mm lens and am thinking about doing the following in April
1) Get Panasonic GX820 and a macro lens and raynox from ideally a company with 30 day returns
2) Test them and see if I can get better than with my Canon

If I can keep them then sell the 65mm lens and possibly the 60mm, I will still keep the Canon bodies for birds and people.
I will use the macro lens for bigger insects and put the raynox on it for smaller ones. Any ideas on how easy it is to take these off? I would be worried about losing it. Saying that I don't often need to use both lenses at the same time.

This is because of Post Focus, I think for someone like me who doesn't use tripods much and 99% of the time photographs live insects it should be easier to get stacks with Panasonic. Any thoughts?

Here is my current flickr public photos, most of which are Macro
https://www.flickr.com/photos/14586608@N08/
 
May I ask please what is a Panasonic GX820?
 
That is something I intend to try when the invertebrates return, but based on some experiments I did a couple of years ago I'm not expecting it to work (at least, not with working methods I would want to work with). But we'll see. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised. That said, some thoughts.

I use post focus a lot for botanical subjects. This is not in-camera stacking, which my experiments showed to be problematic, at least for my purposes. I use post focus to capture video from which to extract JPEGs for stacking. However, my subjects are generally a lot bigger than insects. I do work hand-held quite a lot, but I have found that using a tripod is better (when I'm prepared to put up with the more limited flexibility and the slower operation because of tripod setup times), the tripod being better both for framing the scene and for keeping the framing constant during captures. It also allows slower shutter speeds (breeze permitting) in lower light, although with post focus you are limited to 1/30 sec as the slowest shutter speed you can use, and that is a limitation I sometimes run into. For example it happened to me yesterday afternoon even when using f/2.8 and ISO 800, which is about as high as I like to go with micro four thirds (in fact I think I went to ISO 1600 for some shots, on top of the fact that as usual I was underexposing to protect highlights).

That is for flowers etc, and as the magnification goes up you need faster shutter speeds to get sharp images, making this issue more acute for insects.

Or you can add light. For post focus this would have to be continuous light as flash won't work with post focus. I have experimented a bit with an LED light. Getting one mounted in a useful position may require either a bracket or some clever connectors if mounting from the camera hot shoe (or hand holding the LED light, or mounting it on a separate tripod, but I wouldn't have thought either of those would be practical).

Although plants do blow around in the breeze they aren't just about to fly or walk off, so I can take as long as I have patience for to try to hit a gap in the breeze. In contrast, as of course you are well aware, insects are liable to fly off at any time.

With the MPE-65 on your 40D you can get down to a scene width of around 4.5mm wide. With a Raynox 250 on an Olympus 60mm macro you can only get down to around 11mm scene width, and the working distance is very short, around 35mm. This compares with, as far as I recall, around 40mm with the MPE-65 when it is at 5:1. Even with a more powerful Raynox MSN-202 close-up lens on a 60mm macro you only get down to around 7mm scene width, and for that the working distance is only around 15mm. Even if you don't want to go that small, if you use the MSN-202 to go anywhere beyond the 11mm scene width of the Raynox 250 on a 60mm macro you will be stuck with a very short working distance of no more than 25mm. You can get intermediate magnifications and working distances by stacking close-up lenses, but the working distances are still quite short for the associated magnifications.

Even with the Raynox 250 working distances are short, ranging from around 90mm with a maximum scene width of around 30mm down to a working distance of around 35mm for the minimum scene width of around 11mm.

You could use a longer focal length macro lens, but for post focus you need autofocus. There are no native micro four thirds autofocus macro lenses with longer than 60mm focal length so you would need to use a third party, probably FF/APS-C lens and an adapter. This might or might not play nicely for post focus.

Based on these initial thoughts this does not appear to be a route I would be inclined to take. I have the kit, but I have not seriously considered doing it this way. I will probably limit my attempts to no more than the 1:1 (around 18mm scene width) I can get with the 60mm macro. I will also try with close-up lenses on a telezoom (45-175 probably). Because you don't have infinity focus (or anything like) with a telezoom and close-up setup the achievable focus depth is less than with a macro lens. On the other hand the working distances are much more agreeable.

By the way, I just did an extremely cursory search for examples of post focus stacking for insects. Nothing jumped out at me. You might want to explore that a bit and see what you can find.

What aspect of your close-up/macro photography are you hoping to improve with a change of kit?
 
Wondered which one it was, there is a GX8, G80 and GX80 and GX800.
Thought a GX820 might be one I had missed, had a GX80 myself, very nice camera.
Replaced mine with a GX9, bigger sensor and tilting viewfinder which might be useful for macro work.
Olympus do a very nice 60mm macro lens that should work well on the camera you mentioned.
 
By the way, I just did an extremely cursory search for examples of post focus stacking for insects. Nothing jumped out at me. You might want to explore that a bit and see what you can find.

What aspect of your close-up/macro photography are you hoping to improve with a change of kit?
Thank you for your long post, sorry not to reply in detail
I did and I found this - or rather I found this and thought about changing
https://www.flickr.com/photos/achimowl/albums/72157661755081246
What aspect of your close-up/macro photography are you hoping to improve with a change of kit?

Got more stacks and easier. In an ideal world I would only photograph insects early in the morning but that would require such a massive change in other people's life that it is not going to happen.
 
Thank you for your long post, sorry not to reply in detail
I did and I found this - or rather I found this and thought about changing
https://www.flickr.com/photos/achimowl/sets/72157661755081246
Excellent link, thank you. (I've seen his work before but lost the link so it's great to have it again.)

It clearly shows that it is possible, out in the field, with the 60mm macro by itself, with a Raynox 250 and with extension tubes as well, with an LED light. If you are ok with the working distances then it is obviously a runner. Some of those are very small subjects. I wonder if he uses a tripod? Anyway, I'll definitely be giving it a try.

Got more stacks and easier.

Well, I certainly find post focus easy to use for what I do. It is literally point and shoot. The stacking is not so easy though. I suspect the stacking may be easier for insects. The capture would be tricky for subjects as small as those springtails.

The only thing I don't like about the stacked results which I saw in my experiments with insects, and see in the linked examples, is the sometimes very sudden and unnatural looking transition between in focus and out of focus areas. Apart from that (a matter of personal taste of course) the results look very good.
 
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